Asus Transformer Book eMMC or SSD

Hi all,

would value your opinions. Considering the purchase of a new Asus Transformer Book the TF100TA and have a choice between 2 versions. Both 32 GB, but one is eMMC and the other has a SSD. What is the difference? Is it worth worrying about? Is one preferred over the other? All other specs appear to be the same. Price point is almost identical.

An SSD is going to be it's own self-contained unit that can be replaced or swapped out for another SSD at some point if it goes bad while I suspect the eMMC is a barebones unit, possibly soldered directly to the motherboard with the controller embedded on the same die with the non-volatile memory. Manufacturers use it in all sorts of small portable devices like smart phones and tablets. So at some point in the future you may be able to switch the SSD for a more capacious one but the eMMC is probably not removable.

If it were a tablet you'd have no choice, but on a notebook I'd say go with what gives the consumer more options in the future and that's an SSD.

An SSD is going to be it's own self-contained unit that can be replaced or swapped out for another SSD

Usually but not necessarily. An SSD can be hard wired into the motherboard as well. If you can inspect a unit before you buy, see if there is a rectangular door on the bottom of the keyboard or screen with 4 screws. Looking at a picture of the unit on line, it looks like a tablet and is too thin to hold a traditionally packaged SSD. An SSD might outperform the eMCC though (Embeded Multimedia Card).

The term eMMC is short for "embedded Multi-Media Controller" and refers to a package consisting of both flash memory and a flash memory controller integrated on the same silicon die. The eMMC solution consists of at least three components - the MMC (multimedia card) interface, the flash memory, and the flash memory controller - and is offered in an industry-standard BGA package.

Today’s embedded applications such as digital cameras, smart phones, and tablets almost always store their content on flash memory. In the past, this has required a dedicated controller to manage the reading and writing of data, driven by the application CPU. However, as semiconductor technology has evolved to allow vastly increased storage density, it has become inefficient for the controller to manage these functions from outside the flash memory die. Hence, eMMC was developed as a standardized method for bundling the controller into the flash die. As eMMC has improved, the standard has also provisioned for features such as secure erase and trim and high-priority interrupt to meet the demand for high performance and security. So while the eMMC standard was created to improve data rates and throughputs for high-density chips designed to store high-resolution video, newer generations are doing more for more applications, and each generation of the standard will include additional new features for a richer end-user experience.

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